Morrissey Debuts Three New Solo Tracks

As he looks for a label to release his completed album, the ex-Smiths singer premieres three songs on the BBC.

Morrissey revealed in April that he had completed his follow-up to 2009’s Years of Refusal but was struggling to find a company to release it. “There is still no record label and the years shuffle like cards,” he wrote. “My talents do not lie in DIY.” As he searches for a home for his next record, the ex-Smiths frontman offered up the next best thing by debuting three new tunes – “The Kid’s A Looker,” “People Are the Same Everywhere,” and “Action Is My Middle Name” – on BBC Radio Tuesday. Head over to the Janice Long program to hear the full show, or stream radio rips here.

True to form, the Mozfather offers up plenty of brooding existential musings, and the music rocks as hard and fast as the material on Refusal. “The Kid’s A Looker” mixes garage-rock riffs and a very Smiths-y synth melody, while the shambling “People Are the Same Everywhere” finds him bitching about humanity, love, and God. “Here in our loveless nation, we’re all in a rush,” he croons. “To find a lover’s touch / And when it’s found you wonder why it meant so much.”

But “Action Is My Middle Name” is the best of the batch, with Morrissey delivering typically witty lyrics about death in his romantic baritone: “I can’t waste time anymore / Everybody has a date with an undertaker / A date that they can not break.”